


sleepyhead

by fishstick



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Birthday, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Sick Character, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-06 12:25:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1858005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishstick/pseuds/fishstick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It gets cold and lonely, sometimes. Nights are long, and the shifts are killer. But Levi reminds him of why he stays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sleepyhead

**Author's Note:**

> okay i know i need to fucking finish the update for _seven days_ but i have like this one-shot fever and ughh please forgive me sempais. just a few more and i'll be done i s2g this took me like 20 mins ok sorry sorry
> 
> fic was written for the following blurb on otpprompts: [♥](http://otpprompts.tumblr.com/post/90016249027/person-a-of-your-otp-has-been-far-away-from-home)

 

 

When he first told them that he wanted to be a doctor, they'd patted his head and smiled.

 _Good boy, Eren._ His father, nodding sternly. Proud, but not surprised, that his son wanted to follow in the family stead.

 _He's so pretentious, isn't he?_ His mother, ever-affectionate. Smiling because she wanted her son to be happy, to live a life of his own choosing.

Since the headstrong age of six, he knew that's what he wanted to be. Meeting his future husband only solidified that desire. The fourteen-year-old and the senior; a beautiful, blue-eyed boy who always seemed to stand aloof, to walk alone in the halls. Maybe it was the reputation that preceded him - _twink, junkie, psycho._ Killed a man, once. Snorted a line of coke right off the principal's ass. Sold his pretty, long hair to pay for a drug addiction. The rumors were wild, ridiculous, and Eren had refused to believe a word of them.

He scared them with his anger, with the fact that he never wore wigs. Oh, they put him through hell for it - called him ugly, called him a freak. He punched a guy once for snickering _skinhead_ behind his back.

It was so obvious he didn't shave it.

Eren didn't understand why they had to be so cruel.

 _I'm going to die,_ he'd said one day, out of nowhere, with a dull shrug of his shoulders as he passed the blunt over to Eren. They were dangling their legs on the swings, shivering in the winter snow. Bumming around some rickety old playground after school, rusty slides where no kids ever played; the place they always retreated to whenever there was nowhere else to go.

_I have a month left._

Two full grams of weed went flying into the wind. Levi was about to snap at Eren for wasting his fuckawful mid, but then he turned over to _look_ \- and saw that Eren's hand was trembling.

_No, Levi._

Levi had sneered, sniffed and wiped his nose. It was hard to tell how much of it was just the weather. _Shit, Eren. I told you because I thought you'd be able to fucking_ handle _it-_

But he couldn't stop shaking. _No._

_No._

_No._

 

_-_

 

"No," Levi hissed, gripping Eren's wrists with fists like white shackles. "You can't."

"The fuck I can't," Eren snapped, yanking out of his fiancé's grasp. He whirled on his heel, turned a cold shoulder to Levi because he couldn't let the man see how _scared_ he was. How much it was hurting him to speak. "You knew I wanted to. I'll take anything I can get."

"I might die, Eren," Levi snarled. He sounded genuinely angry. It was scalding. "I could die while you're still ten fucking worlds away from me, and they'll call you on your cell to tell you that I'm on life support and there's only a few minutes left and - fuck, you'll probably blow your month's grocery money some fucking overnight plane trip and then you'll get there just in time to see them lower me into the fucking _ground-"_

Eren's hands found the edge of the kitchen counter, and stayed for balance. "You're still alive, right?" he breathed deeply; once, twice, to stabilize his unsteady legs. "You can stick around for a couple years longer."

Levi stared at him, something akin to dark incredulity in his eyes. He stared, but didn't speak.

He seemed to be waiting for something more.

"I'm going to do this," Eren offered softly. He willed himself to look upwards, to meet Levi's hardy, unreadable gaze. "I'm going to make you better."

After what seemed like an eternity, Levi finally let out the smallest of sighs, and nodded.

"Then, I'll be waiting."

 

-

 

He keeps his eyes open for jobs in research, while he works his ass off for forty thousand bucks a year. At some points, he's living off ramen and sleeping ten hours a week, but the determination is like a seed of life in his gut - spurring him on, feeding him with memories.

The reminders come in the form of contact from those he loves. His parents call him weekly. Armin and Mikasa text him, message him, pester him incessantly about the next time he's going to come see them. Swallowing the sick, bitter bile of longing, he smiles and sends them cheerful apologies. _The life of an oncologist is hard, y'know._

It's cold and lonely sometimes, and there's not many people around with whom he can share his hurt. Pixis is his unofficial "mentor," and he's a good-hearted man, but eccentric and busybodied just the same. Between them, it's business and strictly business. His fatherhood is the fatherhood of white coats, not the warm, loving hands of his parents back home.

He just wants to _see_ them. Even if it's only for a few minutes, he wants to feel them and see them and touch them, to make sure they're still real. Armin, Mikasa, Sasha, Connie, _fuck_ \- even Jean and his stupid horseface send pangs of longing through his chest whenever he remembers.

(That's a real indicator of his desperation.)

But, most of all, he misses Levi.

They Skype almost daily. They talk about noir and news and coffee, horror flicks and tea and Levi's perpetually-weird customers. They talk about Eren's patients, their progress, life on the residency frontier. They talk about the goings-on back in St. Maria, how Levi's not getting any better but he's not getting any worse, either. How Hanji continues to smile at him every day, swearing to Erwin whenever he walks by that _our favorite little trooper's getting stronger!_ And how Levi always threatens to punch the glasses off their shitty face, because he's fucking almost-thirty and calling him _little_ is like asking for hell to open up beneath your feet.

All in all, he's doing great.

And that alone is cause for celebration.

 

-

 

He runs through his text messages for the hundredth time. He paces around the house as he listens to the voicemails on his phone. He even checks his Facebook, which he almost _never_ does.

Nothing. There's nothing. And it's ten minutes 'til twelve.

He sits down on his couch and tries not to cry.

_Fuck, he'd never forget about this._

_What if something happened to him?_

_What if he's-  
_

No, no. They talked two days ago. They'd chatted face-to-face and Levi was his usual, lovely self - albeit, extremely nasty and sarcastic, but Eren had long since learned that his level of snark was proportionate to how good he was feeling.

Judging by that alone, Levi had been feeling _great._

So, what was going on?

 _Maybe he really_ is _getting it on with that Smith guy and he's not interested in-_

Whoa, whoa.

That one was really out of left-field. Levi would've slapped him for thinking something so ridiculously distrustful.

He glances over to the calendar on his apartment wall one more time, just to make sure the date is right. It's March 30th, all right. All the letters and mail and exuberant phone calls from friends should've been more than enough to convince him that today is the day.

But without Levi, he can't be sure.

Suddenly, his pocket begins to vibrate, and he almost falls off the couch in his mad, graceless dive to retrieve the cell. His heart is hammering as he glances down to read the message on his screen, _shit, please, let it be him-_

It's a text from _major douchebag._

Jean.

_Happy fucking birthday. I wouldn't have sent you anything but I thought Mikasa would've been mad at me so here you fucking go. ps I hope Levi's doing well._

That last part is enough to finally push Eren over the edge. He lets the phone slip between his fingers as he buries his face in his hands and begins to shudder. A million different scenarios are flying through his head, images of Levi in the hospital, surrounded by silence and cold, cold death; Levi on the mortician's slab, sliced open but not bleeding; Levi's ashes, Levi's gravestone, and the funeral he'd never even realize-

_Ding, dong._

The doorbell pines for him, offtune.

He's beyond all hope as he slowly rises to his feet, dragging himself over to see whoever's outside, rubbing furiously at the tell-tale tearstains on his cheeks. It's minutes until the end, and every step he takes is full of speculation, so much that he's barely paying attention when he twists the knob and pulls open the door, to see some empty face that he really doesn't want to be seeing, to exchange lissome greetings that he's already reserved for someone else.

_Oh._

_Oh, god._

Heavy breathing. A weak, watered-down smile. Two suitcases at his side, packed full.

"Made it with two minutes to spare," he's saying, running his fingers through dark, soft, strange hair, but Eren's hardly listening. He's all eyes now, eyes for Levi, and it's sick, bitter, shaky relief washing over him in waves as he puts a hand to the doorframe for stability.

A few moments of silence pass between them, while Eren recollects himself and Levi waits.

Moments turn into seconds, seconds turn into hours. Months. Years.

_It's been a year._

And then, when he opens his mouth to speak, the dam of words overflows.

"Levi - Levi, you fucking idiot, you could've _died,_ what the _fuck_ \- were you even thinking, holy shit, you scared me so bad - can you walk? Don't fucking move, don't move an inch, you shitty, stupid _asshole_ -"

He's crying and heaving all over the place and there's joy and sadness and triumph in Levi's eyes and he's sneering, but obeying, standing still as a statue in the chilly spring air as Eren rushes to him and meets him with an embrace warmer than the hottest embers of Earth. His heart screams against Levi's chest, counting down the seconds to midnight. Skin pulls, lips tug and ribcages touch, threatening to burst with the swell of bliss.

_Ten._

"I - I bought the wig you liked," he murmurs, resurging from the kiss with a gasp. "See?"

_Five._

"Oh, Levi," Eren whispers. He clutches the man to his chest, until his feet no longer touch the ground.

_Zero._

"Happy birthday," Levi says, and finally - finally, he rises up on tip-toe, wrapping his arms around Eren, and returns the hug with every fiber of his being.


End file.
